Social Services Working Group - 15.03.17 - Report

(Brussels, 22 March 2017) The meeting of the Working Group on Social Services was held on 15 March 2017 in Brussels was attended by 48 participants from 15 countries and from 33 affiliates representing trade unions in health and social services and in local and regional government.

The meeting dealt with three main topics: 1) Trade union action to address the challenges/impacts of the provision of social services by private (for-profit and not-for-profit) providers. This covers EPSU’s work with multi-national companies in social services. The aim was to facilitate the mutual exchange of information and experiences amongst EPSU affiliates; 2) New forms/models of care and their impact on the (systems of) provision of services, their quality and the workforce: This included a closer look into the concept of “integrated care” and what it means for the health and social care workforce and into trade union work to address the challenges and opportunities related to the digitalisation of social care; 3) Promotion of social dialogue in social services. The article summarises the main points addressed, discussed and/or decided.

  • Following the presentation of the EPSU Discussion Paper "Fighting for workers in for-profit care and social services", incorporating evidence mainly from five countries - Sweden, Denmark, UK, Belgium and France - by Patrick Orr, EPSU, a number of participants took the floor and added own experiences and examples regarding the consequences of privatisation of and commercialisation in social services such as low pay, quality of care work and staff shortages, but also what their trade union already has done to address the various challenges. It was agreed to enrich the Discussion Paper - based on input from affiliates - with additional examples from other countries. In addition “real life” stories from workers should be added illustrating what for them increased private for-profit provision, marketisation or commercialisation of social services means and on how trade union work, enterprise agreements, collective agreements, legal provisions, etc. have improved their terms and conditions (including pay, working time and work organisation), the health and safety at the workplace, access to continuing professional development, etc..
  • Guillaume Durivaux, EPSU, explained the main objectives and milestones of a two years project kicked off end of January 2017 in order to give profile and to promote EPSU’s work with multi-national companies (MNE) in social services. Colleagues from a number of EPSU affiliates will jointly assess the interest in and the feasibility of a European Works Council (EWC) for the two French-based enterprises ORPEA and KORIAN. EPSU has already experiences in the sector e.g. with Capio, a Swedish company.
  • Patrick Orr, EPSU, made a presentation on mobile applications, location tracking and work organisation in homecare that seem to become a common feature of work life in community-based elderly care. He provided several examples of companies promoting the use of mobile applications and reflected on the likely consequences for the workers (as to work organisation, working time, etc.) and on questions of information and consultation, etc.. He also outlined other activities of EPSU in relation to the digitalisation of public services. Issues “popping up” with relevance for the sector of health and social services and insofar also increasingly on trade union agendas are e-health, m-health, telemedicine or electronic patients’ card.  A number of participants expressed their concern as to the speed of the spreading of such applications and in particular as to their impact on (the autonomy of) work organisation and the risk of increased psychological pressure and stress. it was agreed to keep this topic on the agenda of future meetings and to collect more examples from EPSU affiliates to update the existing EPSU thematic policy and background papers. This could be the basis to define the main foci of the future EPSU work and if appropriate to elaborate joint positions in order to influence EU-level legal, policy and project-related initiatives.
  • Alexander Elu, Eurodiaconia, came to introduce a paper agreed in March 2016 upon by a number of EU-level NGO networks on "integrated care" (Joint Call for EU Action on Long-term Care with a Special Focus on Integrated Care), a concept dealing with a user-oriented coordination between health and social services and their integration in community-based care settings. The guest speaker also embedded the joint work on integrated care with the aim to get more support by European institutions and national governments for the promotion of models of integrated care and to also adapt the criteria and guidelines in European funds (ESF, etc.) accordingly into an overview of relevant EU-level policy initiatives and report in the field of long-term care. The presentation was intended to serve as an input into an in-depth internal exchange on impacts of concepts such as “integrated care”, “de-institutionalisation” or “community-based care” on the workforce are of key interest. What do they imply with regard to the work organisation (including working-time related issues), to staffing levels, to requirements of health and safety at the workplace, to access to continuous professional development (CPD)?
  • Colleagues were updated on new developments and papers elaborated in the context of the PESSIS III Project aiming at the promoting of social dialogue in the field of social services at national and European level. The five country reports for Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom from a third round of a mapping exercise on national situations and structures as to social dialogue in social services since 2014 have become available. The Common Declaration(for the time being available in EN only) of the employers was presented, assessed and juxtaposed with the EPSU’s Working Paper on Social Services and Social Dialogue (available in EN, FR and DE). Participants identified large overlaps and discussed the focus of the paper on social dialogue-related initiatives and on EU-level lobbying activities around a number of policy dossiers. The trade unions represented agreed the key points and main messages to be made by the EPSU representatives at a project partner meeting and in a hearing in the European Parliament on 21 March 2017. The final conference and the final project partner meeting will be held on 17 and 18 October 2017 in Brussels.
  • Mathias Maucher, EPSU, gave updates on a number of recent initiatives by the European Institute for Standardisation (CEN) for EU-level standardisation/technical standards in health and elderly care services. Colleagues supported the assessment by the EPSU Secretariat and the broad policy orientations with regard to EPSU’s future work to influence to these initiatives.
  • The colleagues sent a message of solidarity to the Belgian health and social service unions to support their mobilisation for better terms and conditions for workers in the non-profit sector (see photo on top of article).
Belgium